Al-Khwārizmī's sine tables and a Western table with the Hindu norm of \(R=150\)
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Al-Khwārizmī's sine tables and a Western table with the Hindu norm of \(R=150\)
zbMATH Open document ID: 1028.01001
author: Daniel McCarthy
author: John Byrne
published in: Archive for History of Exact Sciences
publication date: 2003-10-28T00:00:00Z
review text: The authors first show that, contrary to the received opinion, al-Khwārizmī indeed did compute a summary sine table based on the Hindu value of \(R= 150\) and a detailed table based on Ptolemaic \(R= 60\). Later detailed tables based on \(R= 150\) can be easily obtained from those for \(R= 60\); this seems to be the basis of the Toledan \(R= 150\) tables. They also show an interesting error pattern in decimal tables derived from sexagesimal depending on whether there was rounding or truncation, which can be used to identify tables derived from Ptolemy's. In addition, the paper contains many remarks of interest to the student of medieval tables.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A35
zbMATH DE Number: 1931211
reviewed by: Heinrich Guggenheimer
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: s00407-002-0058-6
OpenAlex ID: W2040077429
DOI: 10.1007/S00407-002-0058-6
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1931211